UKC

Is there a bigger rip-off in existence than the school photo racket?

a single medium print is £12, one image on a cd is £17, an online download is £16! 'variety packs' with several different sizes are £29.

so two kids plus a 'family group' picture is £36 minimum.

Order within 5 days or get a £4 late order charge.

These guys (Tempest Photography) are taking the piss out of a captive market.

Should I moan at the school - are there less rapacious companies doing this?

In reply to pasbury:

I imagine you will just get "you don't have to buy them".

I'm surprised in this day and age when everyone has a camera on their mobile that such an old fashioned thing survives.

In reply to pasbury:


I'll raise you a school uniform.

In reply to marsbar:

True,

it exists as a pure expression of pester power.

In reply to pasbury:

Do they still do the panoramic school photo's where if you're quick enough, you can be at both ends of the photo?

In reply to pasbury:

Take the kids to a studio in their uniform and see how much they charge you!

I'm a professional photographer, alas not schools.. but I've always seen it as a license to print money none the less.

In reply to Indy:


The wedding photographer. Or, the wedding photographer travelling with the happy couple on the Caledonian Sleeper, via the Isle of Wight ferry and following tea at the Dorchester.

In reply to marsbar:


There might be grandparents who haven't yet caught up and expect/demand prints, probably framed, possibly silver.

We've got a £10 6x4 print in this genre stuck on our fridge with a Lego magnet . The younger one looks like fury; his elder brother at his side, by contrast, looks angelic in his school jumper with the collars of his white shirt beneath poking out just so. The whole thing is spoilt a touch by the red felt tip pen scribbled all over his face by the young'un.

In reply to pasbury:

Swimming lessons underwater photos - cheapest option is about £150 for a single print!

Still, we did it for #1, so we'll have to do it for #2...

Would have done it in the pool on holiday, but water too cold

In reply to pasbury:
Get the pack, grandparents' chrissie present sorted, cheap at twice the price.

In reply to pasbury:

I think I always took one look at school photos, and gave them straight back; they never went home, so my parents never wasted money of crap photos of me (which, for reasons in addition to the obvious that I was, and still am, an unphotogenic gargoyle, they always were).

In reply to Indy:


i'm going all in with a prom dress

In reply to pasbury:

Just don't buy them. Take your own. The kids moan for a bit but shut up with a cheaper bribe. The 'group' photos are shite. They will probably never see any of their fellow pupils again and will de friend them anyway.

In reply to pasbury: find a neutral background, put the kids in uniform, Tell them there's a fiver for them to say cheese and click.

What's not to like you are in credit.

In reply to pasbury:

This works really well, found two of myself in a few minutes.

http://www.worldschoolphotographs.com

In reply to mark burley:

This I like!

In reply to pasbury:

I don't really get the school photo thing. You see the child every day, you won't forget what they look like!! And if you want a photo for posterity, why not have photos of them doing fun things and maybe wearing something better than school uniform. I guess the system started when many children would only have one smart outfit, and that would be their school uniform. Also, most people couldn't take photos, or certainly not decent ones, at home. Now, why bother?!

In reply to pasbury:
I've now moved to the States and it's even worse! For a package of about 5 photo's it is $100 and unless you say no, they retouch all the photographs.

Get rid of all of what they call blemishes, stray hairs, recolour faded bits of clothing, add backgrounds (the moon, Niagara, New York etc), whiten teeth and change skin hue!

So, I did it myself on school photo day and made my own. Cheeky blighters!

In reply to girlymonkey:

There's the whole pictures for grandma and grandpa thing that you might not be aware of. They like to put grandchildrens pictures on their mantelpieces.

In reply to Indy:


Or football strips designed to create the illusion that your toddler supports the same team as his dad.

In reply to felt:


Too right, school photos are small change compared to that.

(Although to try to be fair I think being a wedding photographer is tough in some ways, e.g. is it hard to do a 5-day 40-hour week as one? PS I had a close friend who did it, and swore off it saying he wouldn't do weddings any more, just other photography).

In reply to timjones:

My son said he wanted a kit for football club at school and that it must be blue. I had to dismiss Chelsea, Everton and Ipswich out of hand as ghastly new money, irrelevant northerners resting on their distant and paltry laurels, and tractor inbreds, leaving Portsmouth, the local side. Well, I couldn't choose them, could I, as they're not really part of Britain let alone Europe.

So what did I go with? Inter. Classy, yes? Well, let's forget this season's stockings. Otherwise perfect, especially as he's not going to get into a rumble with some five-year-old AC Milan. And a rather attractive price for the full kit, too.

In reply to aln:

Well played, sir!

In reply to pasbury:

A good present to get the grandparents is a Nixplay frame (www.nixplay.com). They can still stick it on the mantelpiece but it is on WiFi so you can set it up with many pictures of the kids and refresh it with new ones.

In reply to marsbar:

Schools will keep doing it because they use the mugshots for their records. Useful to have photos of every kid for all kinds of reasons.

I suspect the photos are so expensive because, as various people have noted, parents have less reason to buy them these days so the photographers have to make their day in school worthwhile off a smaller number of sales.

In reply to girlymonkey:

I think possibly you and others are missing a point. The photos may or may not be interesting for you as parents now. They almost certainly will be so for your children in 50 years time. I occasionally look at mine and remember those I was at school with in the 60's. My wife (educated in Moscow) does so regularly and keeps in touch with many of those in the photos. She took the photos back to her old school a couple of weeks ago to show current pupils the faces of some now quite successful people who were in her year (it was, and still is, that sort of school - no concerns about selection in the old Soviet system).

Martin

In reply to pasbury:

Take your own against a white background. Print the ones you want.